Skip to main content
Dessert

Centennial Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, powdered sugar, flour, baking soda, egg whites, sweet milk, cream of tartar, vanilla, topped with citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Centennial Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter and powdered sugar until smooth.

  2. Add the egg whites and mix well.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the sweet milk and add to the mixture.

  4. Sift the cream of tartar through the flour and fold it into the batter gently.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into round cake tins with straight sides.

  2. Place a slice of citron on top of each cake.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until done.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich texture.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps form a fine, even crumb when creamed with butter.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift to the batter as they set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar and milk to make the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, reacting with the baking soda to produce gas for rising.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.

The step that matters

Folding in the cream of tartar and flour. Folding gently keeps the air and gas bubbles in the batter. Overmixing knocks out the bubbles and toughens the gluten, leading to a dense, less tender cake.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes